For the possibly two of you awaiting the rewrite of my critique of the Coyle and Hillmann article in D-Lib, and particularly for the wonderful folks who provided feedback so that I could do a better job, I am sorry. I do not know when (or perhaps even if) it is coming.
For many reasons—most of which I am not prepared to go into right now—I am currently experiencing another “crisis of faith,” if you will, regarding my chosen field of endeavour. I am fully despairing for the future of libraries, not for any of the reasons generally thrown around like not changing fast enough, changing too much, no cultural relevance, lack of ability to compete with the likes of Google or Amazon, or …. No, my despair is for, and because of, librarians.
This perception does not come from the biblioblogosphere alone and, with any luck, not even mostly. [Warning: upcoming generalization and reification] I say that because the biblioblogosphere is an entity unto itself; a self-important entity that has far less impact than it seems to believe it should. It is also a highly divided, fractious entity.
No, my despair is based on journal reading, to include a historical perspective, multiple mailing list “discussions,” face-to-face discussions formally, semi-formally and informally, and other assorted places/venues.
I do not have the energy right now to even attempt to be the chronicler of what I see. As much as I enjoy being a philosophical and cultural gadfly, I first need to find some inspiration again. Maybe when I actually have a little hope again I can spare the energy to be the critic. Notice, I did not say that I have lost all hope. Yet.
I fully expect the academic/practitioner divide. I even expect some of the other divides as they are historical. But I am seeing far more division than I used to. The state and future of libraries, and hence librarians, is a very murky thing right now. Thus, some fractiousness is to be expected, I guess. And maybe that is all it is. But I fear it is worse. And even if it isn’t all that I perceive, I still want to know how we are to make any forward progress with so much division amongst us.
One thing I am doing for myself is to seriously cut back on many of my sources of information and “keeping up.” I have slowly started to prune my Bloglines account, and after I give a presentation for our ASIST student chapter in eight days on blogs that students might want to follow I am going to seriously reduce the clutter and chatter.
I am also seriously questioning the current value of AUTOCAT to me. After it recently changed hands (ownership), it has become a kinder and gentler list, but the chatter has also gone up significantly, and daily message counts have doubled.
I am going to try and weed a lot of sources out of my current reading/browsing routines and when I have found a little breathing room I will add in a few things of value that I am not currently engaged with. This is the plan anyway.
I want to be excited. I want to be engaged. I want to contribute to my field. I need to have hope.
10 responses so far ↓
1 jenny // Feb 12, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Practicioner-wise, I know few librarians (outside of UIUC people) who LIKE going to conferences, who know what conferences are what, who recognize the names of major ALA people, or who read any professional journals (print) on a regular basis. This may be the specific area in which I work though, seeing as there aren’t really sufficient journals of specific interest, and what there is is all corporate sponsored.
2 Mark // Feb 12, 2007 at 9:01 pm
If I had less sense, I might suggest we start our own journal. Luckily, my despondency hasn’t caused me to lose all sense of, well, “sense.”
3 Steve // Feb 12, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Mark, I don’t know if what I have to write is at all helpful but I’ll write it anyway…There are times beyond count when I have wondered to myself, “Why on EARTH am I still in the librarianship world?” I even jumped over to the “dark side” initially, working for a vendor, because I seriously doubted whether I wanted to continue to work in libraries, period.
There are times when I really despair of any real progress, any real thinking, any real change occuring in this small world of libraries. One of the ways to lessen this frustration is to purposely cut out professional involvement, particularly in the form of conference attendance. When I hear someone at a conference talking about something as if it THE BEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD I sometimes want to just scream. This is why I avoid going to ALA in particular.
Just about everywhere I’ve been in this small, weird little world of libraries, I have felt (and continue to feel) like an outsider, like I don’t really fit in.
So what am I saying? Well, I guess I’m saying that I “hear” you loud and clear. I also want to point out that in spite of all of the negativity expressed above, I am STILL in the profession, and I am proud to be a librarian (well, most of the time). Doubting, questioning, wondering are not necessarily bad things and honestly, I worry about those people in our profession who don’t seem to ever have any qualms or concerns like what you’ve expressed.
Steve
4 Mark // Feb 12, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Thank you, Steve. I appreciate your comments.
I have no problem with the questioning. I am well aware that if I ever stop questioning, well, let’s just say I’ll probably already be in the oven by the time I realize it. I don’t even mind being the one to ask the questions, despite the potential cost to me, because someone needs to do it. I would prefer if it were many someones; especially if those same someones were listening to the answers of others.
I just don’t know what’s up right now. So many other people are seeing some of the same, but most people won’t talk about it for “obvious” reasons–tenure track, job hunting, unsure of themselves, new to the profession,….
All I know, unless something else comes along (quickly) to perk me up, I’m really hoping that “removing myself” from much of what I’m currently “consuming” as info re the profession will help. And that secondly, finding other sources of actual content/projects will help me see what’s really going on that is positive and where I might get involved.
Anyway, thanks Steve.
5 Iris // Feb 12, 2007 at 10:32 pm
What Steve said. (I think I’m doomed for all eternity to agree with eloquent things Steve says… but things could be worse, I suppose.)
I don’t know if you were reading my blog back when I talked about unsubbing from things that were getting me down. I came within a hair’s breadth of dropping out of library school because of a few librarians at one library. These librarians never said it in so many words, but they absolutely ooozed submission to a life path that they knew for a fact was pointless, under-appreciated, and downright unpleasant. And lately similar sentiments have been making the rounds of a few email lists (and judging from your post, I think we’re thinking of the same list(s) that have been particularly disheartening lately).
But then I got a job with some of the most amazing, engaged, caring, innovative, and generally wonderful people. And in the words of Robert Frost, that has made all the difference.
In fact, it made such a difference that it helped me realize that there are discontented people rather than discontented professions. And I’m sure there are discontented people in every profession.
Unfortunately, these people also seem to be some of the most vocal. Not only that, but their discontent is incredibly contagious. And that’s why I’ve systematically unsubbed from blogs that consistently and eloquently spread discontent (even when that discontent is funny). I just won’t put myself through it. (I’ve also unsubbed from a few email lists for this reason, but I think the time has come to cut myself off from a few more.) It’s just too catching, and I’m too prone to feel what other people are feeling.
And also… what Steve said.
6 Mark // Feb 13, 2007 at 8:17 am
Hi Iris. Yes, I may not have made it very clear, for which I won’t necessarily take the blame as it is an artifact of the way we talk and write.
I *do not* think that a profession can be discontented. I guess every individual in a profession could be discontented with the profession (or with anything else), but a profession is not the sort of thing that can *be* discontented, just as libraries do not do anything despite what much of our literature claims. Classic cases of “category mistakes” (see G. Ryle).
My feelings of discontent and that of others come from just that, people, individuals, solo and in groups. But it is the group of individuals that are discontented (and not necessarily with exactly the same things to the same extent) and not the group itself.
Hopefully the weeding out of many of the voices will help, as will hopefully the focusing on projects that are actually doing things.
By the way (all), I am not necessarily saying that I am going to remove the discontented voices. In fact, many of those are the most valuable in my opinion. In many cases it is the rah-rah voices that I will be removing. Much as Steve commented on.
There is so much uncritical thinking going on, especially in the biblioblogosphere, about what the next big thing is and where “we” should be as libraries and librarians.
To much of that, I say, “Horseshit!” It’s a bunch of privileged, middle class, Western, primarily white, people who have little ability to actually consider the impact on the world as a whole.
There are many other issues, too, but I do not want to discuss other people’s issues without their permission, and I currently prefer to discuss things as concretely as I can.
7 Iris // Feb 13, 2007 at 9:24 am
There’s discontented and discontented, in my view. What I mean is, you can be discontented and constructive, or you can enter every situation absolutely prepared to be disappointed. I’m all for anything constructive.
Similarly, there’s “ra-ra” and there’s grounded enthusiasm. Enthusiasm, like discontent, isn’t all bad. Sometimes it’s even inspiring.
I guess the distinction (which I didn’t make at all in my previous comment), is whether or not the voice is simply discontented or simply ra-ra rather than thoughtful, interested, and engaged.
But I know you were never against thoughtful and engaged. I’m just clarifying what I meant by “discontented.” It’s not the fact that they see problems. It’s the state of being, regardless of topic or situation, that I find toxic.
8 Mark // Feb 13, 2007 at 9:34 am
Yes Ma’am. I agree fully, and I guess what I am trying to stave off is the toxic form of discontent. And I most certainly have nothing against positive people, enthusiasm and engagement.
In fact, I am searching for something that will help me be all of those things again. I will still be highly discontented with many things and I will continue to speak and write about them. But I need exactly what you say, Iris, in others, and for myself.
Very nice clarification, though, even if I did not take you to be saying anything but that. It is a nice clarification of what we are both trying to say. Thanks!
9 Jason // Feb 13, 2007 at 10:22 am
I think “noise” is one of the biggest problems in this profession, ranging from extreme cynics who can’t imagine what librarianship could be to those who seem to want to change the role of libraries completely.
I decided to call myself “The Pragmatic Librarian” because it was one of the few names not taken in Libraryland. However, I also thought of it as a good way to distinguish myself from the cynics and the visionaries. I think we should encourage truly innovative thinking (a difficult concept to outline in a short comment), but watch out for the kind of uncritical “visions” Mark mentions.
I think that paring down on the noise is a good idea, especially with all the stuff librarians “should” be keeping up with. Again, I started my blog as a way to engage with such ideas, and to figure out what seems useful to the profession.
As an example of supposedly big trends, I have expressed skepticism in my blog about Second Life in the past. Nevertheless, I finally started an account last week, and I started thinking about its implications. I like some things about it, but there are other things to sort out before it’s “ready for prime time.” (In fact, my last two postings are about my avatar’s adventures in Second Life, as well as my assessment of potential advantages and disadvantages.)
I do agree with Mark’s concerns about the privileged circumstances of those who uncritically push these new innovations that librarians should supposedly jump on. I know about the hype around Second Life, but it only has 3 million avatars. Looking at the stats for use in the past 60 days, the number is about half. At any given time, the number of users “currently” in Second Life is much lower (20K-30K).
Although I see value in “video game” and group learning, I do worry that some people will push those to a point where text and individual learning will be looked upon with the same derision as video games many years ago. If nothing else, I hope that librarians can help maintain a balance by facilitating and advocting for all those types of learning. Even if cutting down on “noise” is difficult, we can at least continue to ask approprite questions.
10 Mark // Feb 13, 2007 at 10:35 am
Thanks, Jason; good points.